But multi-family housing is not permitted on the site located at the end of County Squire Drive overlooking Route 372, according to Town Planner Stuart Popper.

And in order to clear the way for building on the site, the developers will have to seek an amendment to the zoning regulations, a process Popper said could take at minimum four months.

But as of approximately 3 p.m. Thursday, no one either from the developer or the property owners has been to see the planner to discuss how to go about amending the regulations, Popper said.

(“Nike” is this instance does not refer to the sportsware manufacturer but to a family of anti-aircraft missiles that were deployed in defensive rings around major American cities during the height of the Cold War.)

Local businessmen Chris Cambareri and Jay Polke acquired title to the property in early February.

However, appearing before the town council last month, their partner, Peter Precourt, said the three owners — and their lawyers — had either overlooked or otherwise missed a lien on the property that dates back nearly four years.

Precourt asked the council to waive the fines in order to clear the way for a developer to go forward with the project. If the project is built, it would yield yearly taxes in excess of $400,000, Precourt said.

Polke subsequently identified the developer as Michael Belfonti, the founder, president and CEO of the Hamden-based Belfonti Companies, LLC.

Belfonti is responsible for a number of commercial and residential developments mostly grouped in and around central Connecticut, including the Heritage Commons retirement community in Middletown, according to information on the company’s website, www.Belfonti.com.

Without mentioning Belfonti by name, Precourt told the council, “We have found a very interested customer,” someone he said “has watched this property for 30 years.”

Precourt said the developer is proposing “a luxury apartment complex that is going to be just beautiful,” one that is modelled on a similar apartment complex in Rocky Hill.

“The question is, what can you do with this lien to move it out of the way so we can take on this white elephant?” Precourt asked the council.

Director of Health Wesley Bell had placed the lien on the property — with a vote of the then-Board of Selectmen — in 2011, when the property was owned by Mount Roncalli Inc. of Portland.

Bell had first contacted Roncalli’s owner in 2010 about the deteriorating condition of the site, which had served as a command-and-control center for a series of anti-aircraft and anti-missiles bases south and west of Cromwell in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Bell told the council last month he was simply “looking for some reasonable timeframe” for creation of a plan to clean up/remediate oil, asbestos and other contaminants on the site.

Cambareri interrupted to say the developer “was doing his due diligence now, and in the next couple of months, he plans to have a plan in place.”

With that pledge, and at the suggestion of Town Manager Jon B. Sistare, the council voted to stay the fines for the time being.

However, subsequent to that meeting, Popper said the town has very limited areas available where multi-family housing is permitted.

“Single-family housing is permitted as matter of right in an R-25 zone,” like the Nike site, Popper said. “But we don’t have multi-family housing in a residential zone,” he added.

To accomplish what Precourt and his partners and the developer hope to accomplish, “they are going to have to amend the zoning regulations to allow multi-family housing in an R-25 zone,” Popper said last month.

“The timeframe to amend the regulations is, ballpark, I would say four months,” Popper said.

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Sistare, meanwhile, was to consult with the town attorney to see if the town had a legal right to a $15,000 balance that was left over from when Cambrareri and Polke bought the property.

“There may be a way,” Sistare told the council. “We may have a right to claim that.”